To the Metal
by Annaleise Marie
Summary: Dean Winchester loves cars. The Impala, of course, but also the cars he, Jo, and Ash lift. It's a good system, a comfortable set-up. Then Sam Campbell is thrown into the mix and turns the whole thing upside-down. [non-related Sam and Dean] [warnings: slash, language, violence, graphic sexual situations, illegal activity] [mentions of het pairings]
1. Copilot

**To the Metal**  
Annaleise Marie

**Summary**: Dean Winchester loves cars. The Impala, of course, but also the cars he, Jo, and Ash lift. It's a good system, a comfortable set-up. Then Sam Campbell is thrown into the mix and turns the whole thing upside-down. [non-related Sam and Dean] [warnings: slash, language, violence, graphic sexual situations, illegal activity] [mentions of het pairings]

**Chapter One**: Copilot

**AN**: Don't know where it came from, but it was just suddenly there and insistent so here ya go. Hope you enjoy!

X

Dean Winchester loved cars; this had been a well-known fact since he was "knee-high to a bullfrog", as his Uncle Bobby liked to say. His father had owned a '67 Chevy Impala, and some—maybe all—of Dean's favorite memories from his childhood and teen years were centered around that car. Riding in the backseat, then eventually shotgun, as he and his dad traveled America, both desperate to find _something_ after his mother's death, though neither was sure what; fixing her, or even just tuning her up on hot summer days when the loose dirt clung to his jeans and his sweat-soaked skin and Bobby handed him a beer because hell, Dean was old enough, had seen enough; the wheel in a white-knuckled grip under his fingers as he sped down I-29 with Rhonda Hurley's mouth encasing his dick, her hands squeezing his balls just _this side_ of pain.

So yeah, the Impala was his favorite, his baby since he had turned sixteen and his dad had tossed the keys over with a gruff, "Take care of her," before he climbed into the beat-up old truck he had bought off of Bobby. But even though the Impala was his favorite, Dean had a distinct appreciation of every car.

Especially the ones he stole.

X

"Fuck, Ash, I'm fucking telling you, we're fucking fucked here." Dean cut the wheel hard, the back wheels of the Lamborghini Gallardo sending up smoke as they lost traction for only half a beat. The acrid smell of burning rubber barely reached his nostrils before the car recovered itself and shot forth once more, the speedometer needle edging—rocketing, more like—up to 80; quite a feat for the narrow, mildly congested city traffic Dean had found himself in.

It was a rookie mistake. When I-95 approaches Miami, you can go right or left. One side of the highway's split takes you around the city on wide-open smooth asphalt, the other leads you deep into the bellows of the city. And Dean Winchester, in his high of the power of the car, the thrill of the chase, with blue and red lights fading in and out of the rearview mirror with every fluctuation of the beautiful car's speed, had picked the wrong fucking one.

"Man, I don't know why you're so panicked. Mellow," Ash's voice instructed from the other end of the phone in a lazy drawl.

Dean knew it was just the way the other man's voice worked, knew that even as the words lazily left his mouth Ash was pulling up the program he had written for just such occasion, pulling Dean up on the map, hacking his GPS, and forming a plan with that look of intense concentration.

Dean knew all of that, but still— "Goddammit, Ash, get me the fuck out of here."

"Steady…" That stupid relaxed drawl. "Steady…" There was a pregnant pause as the Lamborghini rocketed through three city blocks and Dean let out a desperate sigh of relief that by some grace of god the lights were green and the late-night city traffic was moving and scant. "_Now! Right!_"

And Dean cut the wheel, his vision blurring with the speed of the turn, and rocketed down the side street as instructed. He had no sooner made the turn than Ash shouted for him to turn left, which he did, resulting in an unnerving vertigo along with an adrenaline dump that, as always, settled itself happily in Dean's crotch.

He shot through four blocks before Ash's next instruction, and now the signs to re-enter I-95 were within eyeshot. He shot up the entry ramp and merged smoothly, cutting through traffic and hopping the steadily-moving lines of cars until he had put a good twenty miles between him and downtown, merging smoothly onto FL-91.

"Alright man," Ash said with a low chuckle. "I'm not seeing any sign of pursuit. Far as I can tell—and that's pretty damned far, y'know—they think you're still in the city. Take it easy."

Dean exhaled a sigh. He was trembling as the last of the adrenaline surged through him, gradually coming down from the high. Fuck, that had to be one of his favorite feelings in the world, the high he got from the heist. Second only to sex. Maybe. They were close, in Dean's mind, those two experiences. Hard to say which he'd pick if both were actually offered up to him to choose from.

He settled into his seat. He had nearly nineteen hundred miles to cover before he reached the Roadhouse. Long stretches of time spent on the 91, 75, 24, 70…

I-70 would take him straight through Lawrence. He let his mind wander to the idea of stopping in, just for a minute, just for an hour… But just as quickly, he tossed the idea. Didn't have time, didn't have even a minute, an hour. He was driving a lifted car worth two hundred and sixty thousand. He couldn't be stopping and risking it, after all of the planning and prep for the heist, just for…

Just for what, exactly?

He pushed the thought from his mind. Didn't matter, he told himself. Didn't matter, didn't have time.

So he hit 75, and 24, and he didn't stop on 70, or 29, or 80. He edged the car to recklessly fast speeds as he blared through Kansas—get through fast, like ripping off a bandaid—his hawk-like eyes peeled for cops.

He finally arrived at the Roadhouse and was no sooner out of the car than Jo and Ash were coming out of the door, a folded up car cover under Jo's arm. In a second they had the car obscured—it would only be there a few hours, anyway, before their partners lifted it in turn, ready to flip it. They did quick work, the job done, cut and dry, within three days. Dean wasn't sure how, but he didn't really care, either. He wasn't the brains of the operation; hell, even Ash, with his admittedly abbreviated MIT education, wasn't the brains. Comparatively, the Roadhouse crew was pretty low-down in the racquet. But Dean got paid—and well—to drive powerful, expensive cars like a bat out of hell, and that was all he needed to know.

The three of them made their way into the Roadhouse, empty in the early hour, and Dean took a seat at the bar, all of his energy sapped now that the job was over. He fumbled in the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. No smoking in the cars he stole, but fuck if a cigarette after a heist was only trumped by a cigarette after a really good fuck. As he lit up, Jo set up a row of shot glasses and splashed in generous servings of Jack. The three of them each reached for one and tossed it back, teeth set against the initial burn.

Ash let out a slow whoop. "Alright then. Job well done." His eyes cut to Dean, amusement lifting up the corners of his mouth. "Well, except for that freakout of yours. What was that?"

"Fuck you, Ash. You try suddenly being in downtown Miami with police hot on your ass after lifting a Lambo." Dean's words were short, clipped, but the tell-tale signs of amusement glittered in his eyes and Ash just scoffed.

"Whatever, man. Pulled your ass out of the fire." He tossed back another shot. "You're welcome, by the way."

Jo rolled her eyes and slid a Pabst across the bar to Ash before filling up a rocks glass with whisky for Dean and then hoisting herself up to sit on the bar. Ash's arm automatically snaked around her hips to rest his hand on her thigh as he leaned against the bar, and Dean marveled at what a weird, but perfect, couple they had turned out to be.

It hadn't always been like this, their group dynamic. Back in the day Ash had still been mission control, sure, but Jo had been Dean's partner when she was eighteen and he was twenty. She rode shotgun, and yeah she saved Dean's ass a few times with her quick thinking and biting charm. They had been pulled over once, actually forced to stop, and Dean had no idea, no clear memory how she did it—although that was probably because he had been focused entirely on not blowing his load in his pants like a preteen in front of her—but she got them out of it, convinced the cops to let them drive merrily away in the stolen car, without even running the plates.

"Might not have freaked out if I still had a copilot." Dean grinned wickedly at her.

"Might not have made it out of Miami if I were there distracting you," Jo returned dryly.

"Touché."

"Well I don't know about you kids, but I'm getting uncomfortable with this whole stroll down sexual memory lane." Ash slammed back the rest of his beer.

Dean and Jo chuckled. Ash was full of shit—it had never once occurred to him to actually be bothered by any references to Dean and Jo's history. Cause yeah, a handful of times—okay, a lot of times—back when Jo was riding shotgun with Dean, they had fucked, high on the heist, on the power. They had even flirted with the idea of trying to go from _pleasenowneedyouharderfasternow_ to _loveyoumakelovetomemineonlymine_, but yeah, neither of them could quite bring themselves to do it. And then Jo had fallen for Ash, and they had that _mineonlymine_ thing going on, and Dean even asked Jo once why she had been with him when it was so glaringly obvious when she found Ash that she had been craving, needing that sort of thing all along. And Jo fixed him with that heavy stare, that knowing smile playing on her lips, and she leaned close and whispered that, "Sometimes, Dean, you just need, really need, the feeling of something powerful under you."

And yeah, Dean could get that. He could totally get that. Maybe not with sex as much, because he liked soft and curves and pliant wet where he was the something powerful, but yeah, he got it. Because that was what he loved most about the heist, what had him creaming his pants a few times in the first moments of the getaway, what had him pulling over on dusty back roads to pull Jo into his lap and fuck up into her hard in the first place, feel her soaking the opening of his jeans and underwear that he couldn't be bothered to pull all the way off as she came on his dick and he spilled into her, his vision whiting out. It was that power, that high, that drove it really, that got him off.

So yeah, the point was, that what he and Jo had had, that limited, desperate, flash-in-the-pan physical thing, wasn't comparable to the unfathomable force that was Ash and Jo. And Dean knew that. And Ash knew that. So Dean and Ash were always good, at ease around each other. Simple as that.

Ash cracked open a second beer, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully at Dean. "You may be right, though. About the copilot thing."

Dean chuckled and pulled an ashtray towards him. "You got another one of her squirreled away somewhere? Cause gotta tell you, Ash, I'm not up for the tension from all sides that would come from Jo riding with me again."

"Nah but there's this kid. Highly recommended by Pamela. Wants you to take him under your wing." Ash shrugged as though this were the most reasonable request anyone had ever made. Of course, Pamela was their boss. Like, the big scary sort of boss. If there was anyone in the operation that Pamela answered to, Dean didn't know who.

But still, saddling Dean with a kid… Speaking of. "What do you mean by kid, man? Cause really, all you need to add to grand theft auto if we get busted is kidnapping and transporting a minor over state lines." It was one of the reasons that Dean wouldn't let Jo enter the game until she was eighteen, despite her dad being in it. Her family may be no stranger to the risk, to the business, but Dean didn't need added risk.

Oh, and statutory rape. There was that. But Ash had distinctly said _he_, so that wasn't so much of a worry.

"Nineteen," Ash answered and rolled his eyes when Dean groaned. "Not that young, man. And apparently he's a smart little shit. Like, full-ride to an ivy school smart."

Dean snorted. "Yeah? So why isn't he there, living a perfect little college boy life? Why does he want in on this circuit?"

"Dunno man; not my place to ask." Yeah, Ash may say that, but the fact was that he didn't have a flying fuck to give about the _why_ of it. Pamela had handed down an order, and like it or not, it was gonna happen. "Anyway, kid's name is Sam Campbell. He should be arriving some time this evening. Lifting the Aston Martin in two days; Pamela wants you guys to get a feel for each other before setting out."

"Great," Dean muttered. He just knew this kid was going to be a liability, which in their line of work was, at the very least, a giant pain in the ass. Besides, Dean was twenty-three. He wasn't sure he had the patience to haul some teenager (legally an adult or not) across America and back in high-stakes heists. Especially one who was completely green. At least Jo had been brought up in the life.

He tried to imagine Sam Campbell, tried to see how he could spin a kid like that to be an asset. He imagined a short, nerdy guy. Probably glasses and messy hair. Gangly, like he hadn't quite gotten used to his body after his last—probably recent—growth spurt. Bookish. Weak.

How the hell was he going to work with that?

X

Sam Campbell arrived at eight that evening, on the dot—exactly the time Google Maps had told Dean he would be arriving given the time Ash said he set out from Palo Alto. Of course, that meant that he had likely travelled the speed limit the whole way. So the kid wasn't a wheel man. That was fine, Dean supposed, because the odds of him relinquishing the high of the getaway to anyone was slim-to-none, but it was still somehow discouraging. How could some nineteen year old kid who drove the speed limit in a—Dean looked out the window as the kid unloaded his stuff—in a freaking _Volvo_ compete in this game? Fuck, he was so fucked.

So he settled his surly ass back on his barstool, lit another cigarette, and bullshitted with Ellen while he waited for the kid to make his way inside. Anything to distract him from the impending doom of this forced partnership. Ellen twisted her lips knowingly when the door opened and Dean dropped his head at the sound, shooting him a look that said _play nice_.

What she said out loud, however, was a simple, "Remember your first game."

Which didn't help, because Dean's first lift had gone off without a hitch. Well, without _much_ of a hitch. So the Porsche had wound up in the San Francisco Bay. He had gotten away, the car had been fished out, insurance had paid to repair it lickety-split, and a week later Dean stole it again. And okay, the 918 Spyder was nearly a million dollar car and Pamela had reduced his ten percent by half in her displeasure at the slight hiccup in plans. He had still gotten it in the end, hadn't he?

But he smiled at Ellen, nodded subtly, and turned to face the newbie, his shoulders set as though bracing himself for a physical blow. Which was good, because Sam Campbell took Dean by such surprise that you could've knocked him over with a feather.

The kid—because Christ, did he definitely look young—wasn't at all what Dean had been expecting. For one, he was tall; taller than Dean, for sure. Second, he wasn't scrawny. Sam was all lean muscle, stretched taught over a wide frame, resulting in a look of eternally being on-edge, ready. His brown hair curled gently around his ears, longer than Dean usually approved of in the category of "neat and respectable haircuts for men", but tidy enough. His sharp facial features and serious, big eyes gave him an instantly brooding look. Those eyes swung around the bar, assessing the occupants—Friday night at the Roadhouse, there were plenty to choose from—before landing on Dean, an eyebrow quirking questioningly.

Dean kept his face impassive, waiting to see what the kid would do. Sam's eyes were calculating, probably weighing what he had heard about Dean against the man himself, trying to decide if they matched. And Dean had never, until that moment, wondered what people imagined when they heard of him, but now his idea of Sam versus the reality of Sam had him curious. Because logically, Dean had to admit that the idea of him probably didn't add up to the reality—barely six feet tall, bow-legged, blonde, with eternally fucked-out lips and green eyes. Yeah, there was something almost pretty about Dean; just masculine enough to avoid being girly, but not so much so that he was threatening. It had worked in his favor a few times.

So now he watched Sam out of the corner of his eye, chatted idly with Ellen, tried not to look like he was expecting the kid, and waited to see if Sam would zero in on him as the guy he's supposed to work with from here on or if he would guess someone else.

But Sam didn't disappoint. He was too hesitant to have actually been given a description of Dean, but still somehow picked him out. He lumbered over to Dean—and okay, maybe Dean had called it on the whole not-yet-adjusted-to-his-body thing, because the kid moved with no grace at all—and awkwardly shifted his bag on his shoulder.

"Mr. Winchester?" Sam's voice was hesitant. And Dean, so help him, was so caught off-guard by someone only four years younger than him addressing him that way that he burst out laughing. There was something surreal in the address, and it hit Dean way deep down.

It took him a minute to regain control of himself, and when he did he nodded. "Yeah… Just Dean is fine." He extended his hand to Sam and shook it, grudgingly giving the kid credit for a strong grip. It was just as well. Dean didn't trust guys with a weak handshake as far as he could throw them. "Sam Campbell, then." Courtesy dictated that he add on a, "Good to meet you," but he couldn't force it out because truthfully, it wasn't. There was no venom in that assessment, just simple fact, and the kid had to know that a seasoned professional in the game being saddled with a newbie was inconvenient. So Dean kept his mouth shut and Sam took the bar stool next to him.

"Anything to drink, Sam?" Ellen asked.

"Water, please."

Dean nearly snorted with exasperation. Of course. Kid wasn't old enough to drink. Good grief. He suddenly felt like the difference in their ages was much greater than four years.

God, this was going to be a giant pain-in-the-ass of a mess.

X

**AN**: So... Thoughts? I'd love to hear from you guys. :D


	2. In It Deep

**To the Metal**  
Annaleise Marie

**Chapter Two**: In It Deep

**AN**: So in this chapter, my apologies, we'll be fleshing out the last of Jo and Dean's thing. But we'll also be—much more subtly—edging into Sam and Dean. I hope you enjoy it.

I should mention that from here on, there will be no more explicit description of Dean having sex with girls. Cause that's not why you came here. Can't promise it won't be mentioned or alluded to, but further description isn't in the scope of this story. So now, moving steadily along…to the chapter!

X

Dean woke up early the next morning, intent on getting some general upkeep done on the Impala during his day off. At some point during the day, Ash would be receiving the completed intel from the casing of the Aston Martin Vanquish, the Roadhouse crew's next target, but that was of little concern to Dean. Let Ash work out the kinks, Dean would happily just follow orders like a good little soldier. Tomorrow, he and Sam would be headed towards Aspen, Colorado, and the next target.

One good thing about having a copilot again: Dean no longer had to fly. When it was just him, he had no way to retrieve his car on long-distance heists, so he had to leave his baby behind and suck it up to travel by air. It wasn't so much that Dean was _scared_ of flying…

No, okay, Dean was scared shitless of flying.

With a second body in the car, though, they could park the Impala about an hour out, outside of what Dean thought of as the danger zone of the heist—the points where they were most likely to run into interference from the police or, in more unfortunate instances, the owners of the car they were stealing. Then, on the way back, they could retrieve the Impala.

Back in the day, Dean would take the Impala back and Jo would drive the lifted car. Now, Dean was faced with a sinking realization that he was caught between a rock and a hard place. He didn't trust Sam with his baby, but the kid was too new to be trusted to keep his cool, to know what to do, hell, to even be trusted to realize what was happening if he was made. So Dean couldn't trust him to drive the stolen car back either. _Fuck_.

He pushed it from his mind as he got started on changing the oil. There was something therapeutic about the systematic, concrete process of working on a car. It was comfortable, practiced, but still required just enough attention no matter how many times Dean went through the motions to keep his mind occupied.

Which is probably why he didn't hear Sam come out of the Roadhouse and take a seat on the front steps, didn't hear him open the cooler that Dean had placed there, out of range of the oil and grime of the car and the parking lot, didn't hear him take out a beer and open it. But after a few minutes, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as his hard-trained instincts began to alert him that he was being watched. Finished draining the oil, he slid out from under the car quickly, eyes casting wildly about until they found the source of the unnerving feeling.

"Jeez, Sammy, make a noise why don't you." Dean stood up, schooling his pulse back down to normal.

"It's Sam." The younger man took a drink of his beer. "And I wasn't exactly sneaking around. Don't have the grace for that."

Dean sighed. "Yeah; gonna have to work on that." Sam didn't appear to hear him. Dean leaned over the engine and started on replacing the oil filter and pouring in new oil. He leaned over the frame, his shirt riding up, and heard a sharp intake of breath. He spun around, searching for whatever had startled Sam, only to find him staring at the waistband of Dean's pants.

Which yeah, was a little unnerving and…well, maybe flattering. Was it flattering if a guy checked him out? Part of him was a little weirded out by it but then again, it was always nice to know someone was into you, right? That is, until they got just creepy about it the way Sam was now.

Abruptly it clicked that Sam wasn't staring at his ass or his junk, but at the butt of the Colt that was tucked into the back of Dean's jeans. He was relieved. Of course he was. Why wouldn't he be?

"You don't actually use that thing, do you?" The look in Sam's eyes when he asked the question was so nerve-wracked that Dean almost felt pity for the kid. Another part of him also sort of wanted to laugh, because the question would have been twenty times funnier if he hadn't realized that Sam was staring at the gun.

Dean didn't answer, just went back to work under the hood.

"Is it…I mean, is it really loaded?" Sam was hoping it was for shock value, as a threat.

Dean kind of hated to disappoint him, but well… "I steal millions of dollars worth of cars for a living, Sammy." His tone was harsh, clipped, answering the question clearly without spelling it out.

"Sam," the younger man corrected automatically. He chewed his lip, turning the answer over in his head for a moment before speaking again. "Have you ever used it?" _Have you ever shot someone_, he meant, and he and Dean both knew it.

Dean finally lost it. He slammed the hood of the Impala down with a harsh _bang_. "Not talking about that. That's one of those questions you don't just ask a guy." He wiped his grease-covered hands on an old rag, taking a few calming breaths before turning around to face him. "What exactly did you think we were doing here? What was going through your head when you decided to sign up for this? You think this is some sort of sunshine and rainbows summer camp? We'll have some fun, you'll learn a snazzy new skill, make best friends for life? Wake up, Sammy! We're all felons. Just a matter of time."

Sam looked surprised by Dean's outburst and the older man gritted his teeth. How the fuck could that be surprising to the kid?

"The car we're stealing day after tomorrow," Dean continued, locking eyes with Sam, "it's worth nearly three hundred thousand dollars. You know who has the kind of money for a car like that? Powerful people. And powerful people have powerful security. If you can't bring yourself to pull the trigger, I guarantee you you'll find yourself with a bullet in your pretty little head before the year's up."

It wasn't something that Dean liked to think about, the times he _had_ pulled the trigger. Sure, he'd never aimed for the head, or even center-of-mass. This wasn't an action movie. Real life, you wing a guy or tear a bit of flesh from the back of his leg, that guy's not going anywhere. To disable, that was all Dean shot for. But Sam needed to understand the gravity of what he had gotten himself into.

Not that he could get out now. The kid was in it deep; knew too many big players, could name too many names. So really, it was just a matter of Sam coming to terms with what he needed to to survive.

The silence between them was heavy, the anxiety radiating off of Sam so potently that Dean could almost swear he could taste it.

Dean furrowed his brow. "Why're you here, kid?"

Sam looked up, startled, but didn't seem to know how to answer.

"Seriously. Ash said you got a full ride to some Ivy League college?" Dean sat down opposite Sam, reached into the cooler for another beer. "Why the fuck would you choose this?"

"Why did _you_?" Sam countered.

A muscle in Dean's jaw twitched, his eyes boring into Sam's. It was a moment before he could release enough tension from his jaw to open his mouth.

"None of your goddamned business, _Sammy_. That's why."

X

"Aww…" Jo cooed when Dean slammed the door behind him, leaving Sam sitting stunned on the porch. She didn't look up from the lemon she was slicing. "What's the matter, Dean. Having trouble playing nice with the new boy?"

"Jo, shut the fuck up for a minute." There was no fight in Dean's voice. He said it matter-of-factly.

The blonde woman rolled her eyes and finished slicing the lemon before whipping the knife around in her palm and stabbing it into the cutting board. As she scooped the slices into a container to store in the beer cooler, she continued. "Suck it up, Dean. The job's more important than your feelings about being saddled with a greenie."

"Yeah? Funny, I don't see Becky around anymore." It was a low blow and Dean half-wished he could take it back. Only half, though, because fuck it was true and Jo was being a hypocrite. Okay, so Dean was baiting her. Didn't make it any less true.

Becky was a girl who…well, who was a little hard to describe. Pamela had sent her to them, impressed by her sheer enthusiasm. Or, that's what Dean had to figure, because the girl hardly had two brain cells floating around in her head. She had been obsessed with the idea of organized crime—the glamorous mafia film type. Which wasn't really the gritty reality they had been dealing with. Jo had hated her immediately, and seemed to take it as a personal insult when Dean had fucked Becky after a heist. To Dean, she was a warm body in the right place at the right time. To Jo, she was a personal affront that Dean had put on equal ground with her. It was the closest he thought Jo had ever been to being jealous when she was with Dean, and it wasn't even _jealousy_, per se. Needless to say, Becky hadn't lasted long at the Roadhouse. Dean had heard that she was working the circuit with a crew out in California, but he couldn't be absolutely sure. It wasn't like he had kept in touch with her, after all.

Jo pulled the knife from the cutting board and whipped it around to point at Dean; not as though she would stab him, but to punctuate a point. "You keep her whore name out of this establishment, Winchester."

"Hey, Jo, you wanna just hate-fuck it out like old times or do you wanna shut the fuck up?"

"Sure, you mind Ash joining? Developing a little thing for him? It's the mullet, right?" Jo's voice was taunting, laced with venom.

They had been like this since they were kids. Best friends, sure, but ready to fight it out at the drop of a hat if one of them needed it.

Dean slumped onto the bar stool across from her. She rolled her eyes and handed him a lemon slice. It was one of those weird things you learned about people when you lived with them, spent every waking moment with them, shared something as deep as the systematic robbery of high-dollar assets; but yeah, Dean loved lemons. Just about the only fruit that he would eat without it being in a pie. Although of course if it was in a pie, all the better.

"Kid's driving me crazy, Jo," he muttered once the sharp taste had subsided. She set a rocks glass and a bottle of Jack in front of him and he sloshed some into the glass. "Can't even come to terms with pulling a trigger; how am I supposed to trust him on a job?"

"It's hard the first time." When Dean snorted, she raised her eyebrow. "What, was it that easy for you?"

"Yeah." And it had been. It had been easy as breathing, because the fucker he shot had been leveling his own aim at Jo. They both knew this, and as the memory resurfaced for Jo it hung thick in the air between them.

"Well," she finally said, a small smile playing at her lips. "When it's important, it'll be easy for him too."

Dean scoffed. But he hoped she was right.

"I'll tell you one thing, though." Jo went back to storing the lemon slices, her long hair falling in a curtain around her face. "If it were me, and you threw that attitude at me when we first met? I'd've let your ass get shot."

Dean laughed. "I did throw this attitude at you when we first met."

Jo shrugged. "Yeah, but it was a few years before anyone tried to shoot you in front of me. Small miracles."

Dean finished his drink while Jo busied herself prepping the bar for the night's business, humming CCR under her breath. Moments like that baffled him; cause really, Jo was everything he should want. If he were to make a list in his head, build the woman he was looking for, it was Jo, through and through. But they didn't work like that. He couldn't feel like that about her. He tried, God he had tried like hell. So why couldn't he?

He told himself she simply wasn't _his_. She was meant for Ash, and it was okay because that was how it was supposed to be. Dean was comfortable letting her go, uncomfortable taking more of her, because she wasn't supposed to be his.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, in depths he hadn't allowed himself near in years, he knew that wasn't the whole truth. But it was still true, and that was enough.

"Guess I should go talk to him." He stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets and preparing to head back outside. Jo made a fair point; if he didn't give the kid some reason to want to cover his ass, he probably wouldn't. While Dean accepted that he was probably going to die doing this one day, he wasn't exactly trying to rush into doing it that week.

He opened the door and stepped out as Jo's clear voice filtered out after him, singing along with John Fogerty.

"Got myself arrested, wound me up in jail… Richmond 'bout to blow up, communication failed… If you see the answer, now's the time to say." Her voice was strong and sweet, and if Dean ever needed one last thing to finally break with her, to finally let go of the _what ifs_ of him and Jo, it was that she had never sounded like that before Ash. Never with him. "All I want, all I want is to get you down to pray."

If Dean was a poetic guy, the door that swung shut and cut off her voice, leaving him alone with Sam, would have seemed like a metaphor.

X

The first ten minutes out on the porch were long ones, and dead quiet. Dean wasn't much of a guy for words; witty and charming until the situation got serious and he became quiet and snappy.

It was Sam, much to Dean's surprise, who spoke first. "Her name was Marin."

Dean cocked an eyebrow and Sam sighed, standing up and leaning against the porch's support beam as he stared out over the parking lot, avoiding Dean's gaze.

"The reason I left school. Why I'm here now. Her name was Marin."

And there was something in his voice, in the slight heaviness on the word _was_, that told Dean what he needed to know about the current status of Marin.

Dean sighed, leaning back against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, his posture and the direction of his gaze a perfect copy of Sam's. They stared out over the dusty highway, waiting on…something. Dean wasn't sure what Sam was waiting for.

"Girlfriend?" he finally prompted.

Sam shook his shaggy head. "Sister. There were three of us."

_Was. Were._ There was a lot of past tense in the younger man's life.

"Adam was older than me. He'd be…twenty-two now. But he died back when we were in high school, me and Marin. She was a year younger than me, so we were closer in age, you know. But she was always closer to Adam, and she took it really hard." Sam paused again, swallowing hard. "I'd hear her, you know, in her room, and she'd be talking to him. After he died, I mean. I should've said something but…normal people see lost loved ones all the time in different ways, right? I figured she was just grieving, trying to feel like she was still close to him…"

"You don't have to—" Dean started but Sam shook his head hard.

"If you're going to have to…mentor me, or whatever, I guess you should know what I'm coming from." He scrubbed his hand over his face, over his jaw, his eyes wide as though to stave off tears and then he sighed. "I went off to college, and for awhile everything was okay, I guess or…it seemed okay. But I guess she just got worse. I got the call, sitting in an English lecture, and I almost didn't answer it but I always answer calls from my hometown, always since Adam, in case it's an emergency, you know? And it was." He looked like he was searching for the words to explain what he had been told, the way people do in times of tragedy, when they want to protect the reputations of the dead, when that's all they have left to offer to the memories of their loved ones. But like most, he came up short, because how else do you say it, and his next words were blunt. "Marin started a fire. And she and my parents all burned to death."

Dean sighed, his brow furrowing. His stomach had sunk unpleasantly to his knees, guilt for his harsh assessment of Sam flowing through him, but he was still puzzled. Still didn't understand what it had to do with Sam being at the Roadhouse. "I'm sorry, Sammy."

"Sam." The correction was short, sharp. "Only Marin ever got to call me Sammy." He dragged in a slow breath. "So I left Stanford. Couldn't do it anymore. If I hadn't gone in the first place, maybe they'd still be… Anyway, gotta pay the bills, right? And my roommate, Garth, he was a wheelman for Pamela, on a few jobs. Would stay out for a few days, wouldn't see hide or hair of him, and he'd turn back up, yammering about a job and hot tubs after a long days work and the guy always had money, despite never seeming to care about a schedule or a boss or whatever. So he introduced me to Pamela and…well, here I am, I guess." He finished the story lamely, with a shrug.

Dean was quiet as he turned this information over in his head for a moment. Finally, he spoke, slowly as though afraid of sending Sam running. "If you had been there, you would've done anything to protect them?"

Sam didn't seem like he could speak. He just nodded.

Dean was already bracing himself for the possibility that Sam would swing on him. Hell, he'd swing on someone if they asked him the question he was about to ask. "If it would've saved your parents…if it would've somehow saved Marin… Would you have shot her? If it came to it, would you pull the trigger?"

Sam's eyes snapped to his, narrowing. "Fuck you, Dean."

"I'm serious, Sam—" He stopped himself before the full utterance of _Sammy_ could slip past his lips. Why did his mind want to call him Sammy so badly?

There was tense silence as Sam glared at him, his muscles taut and his fists balled up at his sides.

Dean sighed. "You can swing if you want, man, but if you're going to ride with me, I need to know. And I need you to tell me the truth."

Sam swallowed hard. "Yes."

"You would?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that? You'd shoot your little sister to stop her from torching the place?"

"Not to kill…but yeah."

Dean nodded. "All I needed to know, Sammy."

And then Sam did punch him.

X

"Fuck…" Dean was dazed. He leaned over and spit, blood and saliva splattering the dirt beside the porch steps. "I can't believe the kid fucking punched me."

Jo let out an exasperated noise. "Of course he punched you, dumbass."

She forced his head back again and Dean nearly gagged as blood began to trickle down the back of his throat from his nose. Jo stuffed something up his nose and on reflex he reached up to pull it out, peering at it blearily for a second before his eyes went wide and he flung it to the ground.

"Gross, Jo!" He stared from the tampon to Jo and then back again a few times, only to find her digging in the first aid kit and opening another one.

"It looks stupid as shit, I know, but it works. Trust me, you're not going to turn into a girl from having a tampon in your nose, settle down." She tilted his head back again, gentler this time. "Anyway, I'd think this is a good thing."

"A good thing?" Dean scoffed, sounding like he had a mild cold as a result of the obstruction in his nose.

Jo shrugged and set to work cleaning up his face and neck. "Well, you know he'll do what he needs to do now. And that hurting someone isn't a hard limit for him."

Dean chuckled. "Who taught you the phrase 'hard limit'?"

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up." Finished with fixing him up as well as she could, she checked his nose one last time and, satisfied that it wasn't broken, started to pack up the first aid kit. "Anyway, you're not going to be charming your way anywhere near that car looking like a run-of-the-mill street brawler, so you need to be nice to him. He might be your only shot at the Vanquish now."

Dean glowered, reaching into the cooler for a beer. Great. So now he had to depend on Sam even more. Fucking fantastic. He just hoped the day of the heist, less than forty hours away now, wasn't going to be his last one on earth.

And hell, at least the kid could pack a punch when he wanted to.

Apparently, Sammy—Sam—was just full of surprises.

X

**AN**: So…this wasn't the way I originally planned for the chapter to end but it just sort of flowed out organically and I wound up pretty pleased with it. Next chapter: an awkward car drive, a high-octane heist, and an intense getaway. I have a plan I think you guys are gonna like. ;)

I'd love to hear from you guys! I swear I don't bite.

Until next time!


End file.
